SEPTICFLESH: “AMPHIBIANS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Mar 062025
 

(In advance of their recent North American tour with Vltimas and Ex Deo, the Greek band SepticFlesh released an EP named Amphibians, and our DGR gives it a review here.)

If you’ve been following the news around tours for the past five or so years you’ve likely noticed an increasing trend of groups surprise-releasing singles – sometimes collaborative ones, which are immense fun – or EPs just prior to the tour happening. Aborted did it for their most recent tour; Machine Head did a combo song with the vocalists of Unearth, In Flames, and Lacuna Coil making appearances; and Lamb of God combined forces with Mastodon for their full album playthrough tour not too long ago.

The genesis of these songs can often lay in the cutting room floor from previous album sessions since creativity doesn’t exist in a vacuum and are highly unpredictable, but whereas it felt like groups constantly needed to have something to get them out on the road, now it has morphed into something more akin to revitalizing the current album cycle for a few more rotations around the sun.

Just as equally though, you do get lucky and a band will find time to sneak into the studio for a few and crank out ideas that’ve been haunting them like shadows ever-present in the corner of their vision. Bearing in mind that SepticFlesh‘s newest release crashes ashore a bit over two and a half years after their album, it would be hard to guess what led to which. Continue reading »

GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, FEBRUARY 2025

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 052025
 

(In this column our Denver-based friend Gonzo brings forward five albums of varied kinds of heaviness for your consideration, all of them released in February.)

Well, February came and went, and I’m still catching up on the absolute onslaught of heavy music that emerged from it – hence the noticeable delay in putting this column together.

Alas, shit happens. I’m still recovering from last night’s Cavalera show here in Denver, in which the eponymous brothers Max and Igor led their band through a crushingly heavy Schizophrenia set that was played at breakneck speed. Even the Chaos A.D. encore cranked up the BPM. And just before they were ready to call it a night, they hauled none other than Jello Biafra on stage for a downright cathartic cover of “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” except “Punks” was replaced with “Trumps.”

In place of a politically charged tirade of my own, I’ll just lazily approve the above with a “fuck yes” stamp of approval and carry on.

Anyway, here’s some music you should listen to that came out last month. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HERSIR — “PURIFICATION OF FIRE”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 052025
 

(written by Islander)

The Swedish band Hersir wear the trappings of ancient hellish menace and vicious savagery. They seem to have named themselves for Viking raiders. They titled their debut album Hateful Draugar From the Underground (in Norse mythology the draugar were reanimated corpses or the restless dead). And the album includes songs called “Holocaust Winter“, “Purification by Fire“, and “Valgaldr” (an Old Norse word for spells that raise the dead).

And have no doubt, there is indeed much about their formulations of black metal that are hellish and vicious, but their thematic inspirations from ancient Nordic spirituality and folklore also give their music an unearthly and epic aura, both frightening and wondrous. Perhaps most unexpected from the outward trappings mentioned above, this is a refined beast, a wicked creature in which a certain kind of dangerous elegance lurks beneath the black cloaks, the decayed skin, and the ravenous and hateful hungers.

So if you might be expecting “bestial black metal,” perish the thought. It thus makes sense that their label Darkness Shall Rise (which will release the album on March 28th) invokes the influence of classic Darkthrone, Enslaved, Emperor, or Isengard. And you’ll understand all of this better when you hear the song we’re premiering today — “Purification of Fire.” Continue reading »

SOUL TOMB: “DROWNING”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Mar 052025
 

(After a bit of a lull DGR returns to NCS with a review of a great discovery, the second EP by the Swedish one-person band Soul Tomb.)

After years of doing whatver you might refer to this as, you sort of develop a sense that the year in heavy metal has a flow to it. There are plenty of peaks and valleys and often Summer can feel like a massive deluge of releases as hardcore festival and touring season gets underway, but there is one thing that has proven to be as equally reliable as the end of the year clusterfuck season or the time set aside for the brave souls who defy the odds and attempt a December release: January is a weird month.

January comes to us at the end of a whole year’s closing, partially feeling like the recovery from a hangover rather than the opportunity to appraise things anew and appreciate the potential of upcoming opportunities. The month is not bereft of releases; in fact the reason why January tends to consistently feel strange is the opposite.

There are a ton of releases in January, but truth be told you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes it’s by big, recognizable names but more often January gets to be a month of gambles and discoveries – which is how the year started on this end. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Mar 052025
 

(Andy Synn highlights four albums from a very busy February which you may have overlooked)

I don’t mind admitting that, due to a lot of different factors – being busy at work, having to spend time prepping and then playing with the band, and then finally succumbing to this really shitty flu (to the point where I’m still not back to 100%, to be honest) – I missed a lot of stuff I originally intended to write about last month.

To exacerbate this, there’s only a limited amount of space (and time) I have here to catch up on what I/we missed, which means the likes of Grima (really good, but perhaps not quite as good as its predecessor), Havukruunu (bombastic blood and fire heroics at their best), and Mantar (a punkier, more stripped-down album than their last one, albeit with a few tracks/riffs that sound a little too familiar in places), probably aren’t going to get the full write-ups that they deserve.

But, you know, those are pretty big names – or, at least, pretty notorious in our little scene – and if there’s one thing we’re known for here at NCS it’s focussing on less (in)famous bands wherever possible, so hopefully you won’t begrudge me my choices for this month’s column!
Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: CHAMBER MAGE — “BLADES ON THE RAMPART”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 042025
 

(written by Islander)

WARNING! THERE WILL BE CLEAN SINGING!

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, for those of you who’ve forgotten that the name of our site has never been a hard-and-fast rule, let’s also add what else there will be: Glorious riffs galore, pulse-pounding gallops, blazing solo work, and mystical melodies.

We’re talking about “Blades On The Rampart“, the heart-jumping song we’re premiering from the debut album of Colorado-based Chamber Mage in advance of its March 28 release by Nameless Grave Records. The name of the album is By Light of Emerald Gods, and it’s a good name because it points the way to heavy metal that’s lit by magical and mythic colors, the stuff of swords and sorcery. Continue reading »

CRYPTOSIS: “CELESTIAL DEATH”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 042025
 

(On March 7th Century Media will release a new album by the Dutch progressive thrash band Cryptosis, and today we present Daniel Barkasi‘s review of the album.)

Thrash and I have held a contentious relationship as of late. True as it is that thrash was my first foray into the heavier side of the metal spectrum many, many eons ago, memorable albums have been difficult to find in these last few years. Without bands like Enforced, what the hell would I do for my fix?

Well, let us not forget Cryptosis – a band that blasted out a semi-debut (formerly known as Distillator, so the group wasn’t brand new) in 2021 that dished a fresh view of Voivod-adjacent progressive thrash that left many heads a-spinning. The name change was indeed appropriate, and said first full-length Bionic Swarm made a steadfast impression. Buffering with an equally scrumptious EP The Silent Call in 2023, the time has arrived by the eagerly anticipated album number two, Celestial Death. Continue reading »

DECREPISY: “DEIFIC MOURNING”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 042025
 

(Below we present Wil Cifer‘s review of the a album by Decrepisy, which will be released on March 28th by Carbonized Records.)

The Portland-based band Decrepisy allow themselves to plunge deeper into the darkness on their sophomore album Deific Mourning. They dig into the catacombs where death metal meets doom. This project features members of Negative Prayer, Vastum, and Coffin Rot. These songs are not heavy thanks to the guitar tones or down-tunings, but due to the songs coming from a place of inner ugliness that is allowed to take itself outward sonically.

Any band can capture Entombed’s sound in the studio, but you are not going to believe demons are in their veins, because they are likely well-adjusted kids with good credit who like the sounds and trappings of metal music, but are detached from the darkness it represents. Then some deal with that darkness by allowing themselves to feel it and live it and that is what comes out when they express themselves in their music. This project is tapping into those places so their instruments become the conduits, and the atmosphere manifested here is the natural progression of where the sound should go rather than neatly checking off the boxes of required genre tropes. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ROTHADÁS — “TETEMEK TAVA… LIDÉRCEK TÁNCA”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Mar 032025
 

(written by Islander)

As you can see, we’re about to premiere a song named “Tetemek tava… lidércek tánca” by the Hungarian band Rothadás. It’s from their forthcoming second album Töviskert… a kísértés örök érzete… lidércharang, which will be jointly released by Me Saco Un Ono Records and Pulvesized Records on March 21st.

According to an online translation tool, the title of the song means “Lake of corpses… dance of ghosts” in English, and the album title translates to “Thorn Garden… the eternal feeling of temptation… a ghostly melody.” Those words point the way to the experience of the music, but we ought to quote from the press materials for the album, because they eloquently point the way in greater detail: Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: NOIRSUAIRE

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 032025
 

(Later this month Khaoszophy Productions will release the latest EP from the French black metal band Noirsuaire, a prelude to a debut album that’s currently being recorded. In the following interview, our French contributor Zoltar conversed with Noirsuaire‘s mastermind N. about what inspires the band, how the work is done, and other topics of interest.)

There’s always been a certain, especially perverse flair to French black metal and although the scene hit a wall in the late ’90s and early ’00s once all its precursors like Vlad Tepes or Mutiilation had gone either silent or simply beyond the grave, it’s been more vivid than ever lately, and not just with bands perpetrating a certain local tradition.

Noirsuaire is a good example of a band — or project, depending on how you look at it, as it is basically one man’s doing, the secretive N., helped by a drummer and some external contributors – rooted in the classic European sound of the ’90s yet not solely dedicated to reviving the flickering flame of French black metal as it also is largely in debt to the Finns, mainly Sargeist and Satanic Warmaster.

Yes, from head to toes so to speak, this is pure ’90s black metal alright, down to its extremely coded black and white imagery and staccato riffing, yet with a genuine FOAD attitude that really sets them apart, down to coming up with a short-but-sweet two-track EP of Misfits covers (Death Comes Ripping) simply because they felt like doing it… Continue reading »

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